


i said i'd give you the world (but it's no shocker that i failed)

by Safe



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Baggage, did you say quasi science, gosh sans, save nonsense everywhere, souls change things, suicidal children, what is biology, you can't just sum people up with one trait
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:56:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6498058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safe/pseuds/Safe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They live and they breathe, even if it's with a stolen body and a soul they've made their own. Chara doesn't want to question the silence in their head. <br/>Sans does. </p><p>Reloads and resets are common for the Fallen, but something else lurks within the void that holds the SAVE. Nobody wants to think about how they aren't special. They don't want to think about how they might not really be 'the only [me] out there.' </p><p>SAVE's overlap. Hands move to create. And sometimes, things get severed in the wake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you aren't even here anymore (the body doesn't count)

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in over a year. Writing. How do I even.  
> Playing with the idea of emotions and souls and game mechanics and fallen children.  
> I bestow upon you musings ;; feel free to break them. ✿

Buzzing. That’s what it sounds like when you cut someone down, separate the magic from the soul, eradicate an existence that leaves little left to show that they existed in the first place. Buzzing, ripples in the air from a dissipating source of magic that permeates the area in a sizzle of static. It’s toxic sludge in the air when unfiltered, unrefined; unrelenting in poisoning the air with their unnatural existence. But Chara has long since been immune to the fizzing air that serves as a calling card for death there. They’re unphased, for the most part, at the begging that comes from the skeleton. The pleading to a name that isn’t even present, a Pacifist that has checked out and all but left the building for good. _Don’t come back, don’t return, don’t reset, don’t reload. Don’t start again._

When Sans fades from their sight, they laugh -- loud, manic-high and piercing, echoing and reverberating through an empty hall filled with light and dust. ‘Selfish’ is hot on their lips, ‘Quitter’ burning their tongue and ‘Coward’ choking them from their scorched throat. His groveling was in the form of burnt and chipped sadness which had rotted into hopelessness. An adoption of nihilism. The lifestyle grates at Chara’s nerves in a way that makes them sing, swaying them with a feeling of determination to make sure they make everything right. Death wasn’t for cowards. Death wasn’t for the weak. 

Apologies are meaningless, and Chara finds themselves moving forward just to kick a foot through the dry pile of dust on the tiled floor. A dull color pop between the golden arches of light. Ordinary and boring and eternally lackluster, just like the creature it used to encompass. They aren’t satisfied.

They want to swing Sans out on a memory and hang him by the soul.

They move forward through the rest of the hall, footsteps echoing all the while as a weight shifts inside them uncomfortably.

When they reach Asgore, they take two steps into the room and catch him with his back turned, but don’t advance. They stare at the familiar set of horns and the the familiar purple cape, and pretend that they aren’t remembering their hands clasped around his horns to prolong a hug and the way the purple fabric felt during games of hide and seek.

Chara focuses on the picture of dusk cluttering his armor and the faux-finality of death, and they turn around and exist the room.

They knew Flowey was still in there. They know this game.

Chara ejects themselves into the void without a second thought, slamming their hand over the ‘Continue’ option and waits for them to be pieced back together within the universe.

 

* * *

 

“Back already? Wow. Not even a break this time, much less a pause. At the very least, that much is new.”

Chara eyes them carefully, stupid perma-grin and all, and simply offers up a smile of their own as a reply. Sans is less than impressed, but he does a good job at hiding it.

“Well aren’t you a peach. Huh. So, kid, about Frisk...”

“They won’t be coming back,” they reply with, easily, before even giving him a chance to continue on with whatever drivel he thought might be necessary to try and inject into their ‘conversation.’ “They’re long gone and clear out of the picture.”

Sans seems skeptical, but as if to punctuate Chara’s statement to no one other than themselves, there’s no stirring in their borrowed soul. Not even a little thump of hope at the mention of the kid’s name -- nothing. They’re quite satisfied with the silence.

They shift their weight more on their right foot, and Sans seems to tense up just a bit; shoulders raising and arms pressed closer to his sides, even as he keeps both hands hidden within his coat. It’s a cute little reaction that they love to see from people -- the small movements that echo from their own. Their knife is still tucked away in their inventory, seeing no need to grab it just yet. He’s just paranoid. That would explain the weird way he was looking at them.

“Then those oddly human and genuine expressions you were wearing last time... They were yours?”

Chara doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and their confusion must have showed at least a little bit, because in the next instant Sans is relaxing and spreading his grin a little wider.

“Heh. Well. Either the kid isn’t quite as gone as you thought, or you’ve got some humanity left in you that you didn’t even know. Whichever is the case in the end doesn’t matter. Both work in my favor.”

It’s Chara’s own turn to tense, planting their feet firmly on the ground so that they were ready to jump if needed. That sounded like a threat, and they weren’t going to let themselves be caught off guard.

“Human? Please.” They laugh a bit -- short and sharp and direct, broadening their smile to a half-grin. “I haven’t been human since I died for the third time. “

The reaction that gets is almost instantaneous. The thin pinpricks of light in Sans’ eyes are snuffed out in an instant, leaving the sockets blank and almost narrowed despite not having the eyebrows to accentuate it. The feeling it gives off is the kind of thing Chara feeds from -- they wish they could get it more often.

They’re about to ask what nerve they’d hit when he starts speaking before them. “...Kid. You tryin’ to say that I’m the one that killed your humanity? ‘Cause let me tell you, you were-”

“Woah there, don’t get so full of yourself, buddy. This was long before I met you -- before I met Frisk.” They pause, only for a moment, but long enough to let their smile drop from their face. “Before your King ever got the idea of harvesting human souls to get above ground.”

The light in his eyes had returned after Chara’s mention that this had happened before they’d met, and they almost want to laugh at the expression that takes its place. If they had to give it a name, ‘relief’ would probably fit the best. After everything that has happened, Sans still didn’t like the idea of killing a human. Or maybe it was just them, the ‘thing’ that was wearing the skin and soul of the kid that he had timelines and timelines to get to know. Maybe it was both. Maybe he couldn’t completely separate and differentiate between them after all this time.

That didn’t stop it from morphing once again into something else once they heard the second half of their reply. _Confused? Good. You should be._

It still wasn’t something that they like to think about if they could help it. They’d made their peace with it, sure -- it had happened. There was no changing it, and while Chara had been incredibly angry about it at one time, that time had long passed. There wasn’t really room for anger, here. Not over something that had happened so long ago, something that was out of their reach and beyond their control. It was pointless.

“Say, Sans. Do you know what buttercups taste like?”

But that doesn’t mean they weren’t willing to open up a few memory boxes if it meant getting a reaction. The thought leaves a tiny ache in their chest, because this is exactly the kind of thing that Asriel -- Flowey -- has and would do.

The difference here is that Flowey lost a soul, and Chara had a stolen one.

“...Buttercups?” Sans’ question brings them back out of their own mind, and they lift their head back up to gaze at him. He’s shifting his hands in his pockets and leaning back a bit, looking thoroughly at a loss. Probably not used to deviating from the script so much. Poor guy. “I’m afraid I’m not followin’.”

They kick a foot out and tap their heel on the floor, moving to cross their arms loosely over their stomach. “The flower. I mean, all things considered, it tastes about as good as you’d think -- which isn’t very, just in case you were confused. It was pretty hard to keep shoveling those things in. Do skeletons even need to eat?”

Chara’s question is answered by a rather deadpanned look, though it was still colored in weary apprehension and uncertainty. They continue. “It doesn’t just end at the taste, though. That in itself is pretty gross, sure, but the way it leaves you feeling is even worse. If it were you, you’d probably be begging for it to end because it hurt so much. You bleed from the inside out -- I wonder if it would be the same for you? I’m not too sure. You’re brother didn’t bleed even when I killed him, but --”

“Is this **going somewhere**?”

Sans’ voice is tight, and they can only assume if was from the offhand mention of his now-late-thanks-to-them brother. Chara simply shoots them off another smile, and squats down to balance themselves on their toes. If they needed to, they could still dodge, even if they would be a bit slow. Chara’s reaction time was a bit worse than Frisk’s, but they could also weather more hits. Besides. The body, at the very least, remembered how to move very well.

“Wow, rude. You didn’t see me cutting _you_ off with your self-deprecating rambling when we fought these past times.” They move their arms in between their chest and knees, tilting their head just a bit to the side as they continue to stare. “Here I am telling you about the second time I died, and you’re trying to get me to stop talking.”

Chara watches as Sans stills at that, and idly wonders if he’s simply holding his breath or just chose to stop pretending like he needed to. Skeleton monster anatomy sure was weird.

The lights in his eyes are still there, a good sign, but they seem to have slit just a bit from their normal diameter. He’s once again hunched over into himself and not even the golden light filtering through the hall can add any warmth to his stance. Even his signature grin seems to have dipped.

“You tryin’ to say you _poisoned_ yourself, kid? And again with that X-times-I-died crap. If that’s the _second_ time -- which I don’t even know how that can be, because somehow I don’t think we’re talking Resets here -- then what was the _first_? Hell, what was the _last_?”

They hum out a low, dipped sound, tapping their middle finger against their left elbow. “Yeah, I poisoned myself to a very slow, drawn out, agonizing death.” They pause. “The first time was when I fell down here. To the underground.”

Chara watches as Sans once again squints at them in that magical little skeleton way, and almost looks a little threatening. “If the fall killed you, there would have been no ‘seconds’ or ‘thirds.’ Monsters down here, we may be made of magic, but we **can’t** resurrect the **dead**.”

 _You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you_ , is hot on their lips, but they decide to not spill that vat of acid onto the ground. The beans were still there, after all. And Chara was still spilling all of that, so it wouldn’t do them any good to ruin it all with the acid that would bring a fight to them this early.

Instead, they straighten themselves up back to a standing position, letting their arms rest at their side. “Yeah, you’re made of magic. In fact, because the lot of you are cooped up in this relatively small space, the whole area is _saturated_ in the stuff. But come on, think about it. We’re pretty far underground. And humans are _falling_ down here.” Sans is eying you with some incredulous look this time, and you really do have to try to hold back a bark of laughter. Seriously, how is a _skeleton_ so damn _expressive_?

“C’mon. We’re pretty tough, but not that tough. No amount of flowers could ‘protect’ us from a fall like that. Every child that’s come down here -- they were dead when they hit the ground. The reason it takes so long for us to get back up is because the magic is molding and seeping into our soul -- It mingles in with it and, if we’re determined enough, it allows us to maintain our physical form.

“We can’t use magic even though it’s become a part of us, but it keeps us alive almost like it does for you lot. If we have _determination_ , we can cling onto life. But we would never be able to leave the Underground alive again. We’d fall apart, since the magic isn’t _ours_. We were just swimming in it.”

Throughout their little explanation-spiel, Chara couldn’t help but be almost transfixed by the emotions that seemed to dance over Sans’ features. It was funny, how he apparently didn’t know any of this. How _no one_ knew any of this. All of the fallen humans, they had kept that little nugget of knowledge tucked in the back of their minds.

Sans looked, well, rather _sick_. However that worked.

“Don’t give me that look. They all _knew_. So in a way, what Asgore was doing wasn’t completely wrong. They wouldn’t have gotten out anyway, so may as well put those floundering souls to good use. Besides, it’s that impermanence that lets us control the Save’s. Since we’re not ‘alive’ in the traditional sense, we aren’t securely tethered here. So it’s easy to bounce back and forth from here to the void.”

It’s not really in Chara’s nature to be such an exposition fairy -- sure, they’ve always had a thing for theatrics and boasting and melodrama, but explaining things straight out? Not their thing. They’d rather watch people scramble around for answers with broken information, or even better, feed them _lies_.

Sans is looking at them like they’re waiting for them to laugh and tell him he’s stupid for believing such a thing -- like he’s _pleading_ with them, again, to tell them it’s a lie. Chara’s not all too sure how old Sans is, but with that appearance, he suddenly looks much, much older. The etches under his eyes were more pronounced, more hollow, and his smile has dipped significantly around the edges.

Something within them shifts uncomfortably, because they can easily remember Asgore echoing that look down at them while they’re in bed, exhausted and worried and sad and _hopeful_ , desperately, because no parent wanted to lose a child. For a moment Chara’s pallet it coated in mushed remnants of buttercups and gunk metal, and they’re forced to swallow it down and resist the urge to spit.

“Kid...are you tryin’ to tell me, that there was no chance of Frisk escaping with us?”

That hollow air in the back of his words slams into them like a ton of bricks to the chest, and they move forward thought the hall and closer to Sans. He doesn’t move.

“Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

Sans perks up at this, just barely, the lights in his eyes almost completely snuffed out as he regards them heavily. “There was plenty o’snow down here in Snowdin.”

Chara pauses at that, standing just a few feet away from him and a bit to the side, and _laughs_. It was twisted, this whole situation was, and while they can’t really stomach the puns like Frisk can, they can at least appreciate some dark humor.

“There wasn’t any chance,” they perk back up with, wagging a finger. Sans just leers. “they walked around and listened to everyone talk about freedom when they knew there was no _hope_ for _themselves_. But then again, they ‘fell down’ for a reason, right?”

With being so close to Sans, it’s easier to tell that he has, indeed, stopped going through the motions of breathing. Chara continues. “No one ‘falls down’ here expecting to wake up again -- I would know.”

“Stop,” Sans bites out, short and hard and they swear they can taste the all-too familiar cracks of unrefined magic leaking into the air. They don’t stop.

“But Frisk did, and they befriended everyone and made their first real connections they’ve ever had --”

“ **Knock** it off.”

“-- tasted what happiness is --”

It’s cold and hard and tastes like blue.

“-but they knew they couldn’t keep it, couldn’t hold onto it, and that in the end no matter how good they were they’d still end up dead.”

The bones that were launched at them were more direct then they usually were, but Chara would have still been able to dodge them just fine had they not been so up close. Unfortunately for them that wasn’t the case, and they’re knocked backwards as the second wave of three tears through the lower part of the right side of their neck, and elbow.

They’re quick to find their equilibrium again and even quicker to snatch their knife from their inventory, because even as they admire the familiar weight the tool in their hand brings the skeleton before them was looking particularly murder-y. Chara, for this moment, chooses silence.

“They could have **stayed** down here. We’d have-” Sans chokes on something, grunting something out that they can’t quite hear, but continues with the same tight voice as before. “-We’d have **understood**.”

Chara can’t help but mutely wonder if Sans thinks that Frisk was still here, listening. His expression seemed to be at war with itself -- tittering back and forth between near-blind anger and remorse, hurt, ... _betrayal_? Chara can’t track it and it makes them feel a little lost, so they choose not to poke fun at him just yet.

“Frisk wouldn’t have. They knew for monsters, _freedom_ is happiness. They’re too _nice_ to be that selfish.”

The moment the words leave their mouth, they want to take them back. Sans hasn’t changed much and Chara _does_ wonder if he’s going to attack again, but they’re back to being stuck on the uncomfortable feeling that seems to have settled in their throat.

For monsters, freedom was what they wanted. More than anything.

It was worth anything to be set free.

_C’mon, Asriel. You trust me, right? It’ll be worth it -- you’ll be able to see real stars!_

_We’ll need more buttercups than this. Go to the back and grab some more while I keep crushing these._

They feel sick. They wonder if the shaking they feel is themselves, or if the world really is pulling itself apart without their permission.

_H...Hand me the ... other bowl. This n-needs to be done right...the first t-time._

“You think we’d have tossed the kid out because of that? Frisk befriended this whole place -- **no one** would have asked for that sort of sacrifice. **No one** wants to see someone they love **die**.”

_“Chara? H-Hey, don’t -- please don’t close your eyes! I don’t like this anymore, you s-said would be quick, but y-you’re hurting!”_

_“Oh, my child...Do not worry, you will make it through this...You are strong...So, so strong...”_

_“You cannot let things end now...Chara, please. Stay determined...”_

“...Kid?”

They’re still shaking. It’s a sensation that they’re hardly aware of, hardly conscious for, and they can feel the accompanying sting in their eyes and _They Refuse_ -

“Shut _up!”_

-And Chara’s launching themselves forward with a flurry of slashes and swipes, because _fuck_ the rules, _fuck_ this system, fuck this _universe_ \--

Sans is quick to dodge, and Chara’s not in the least bit surprised as they keep their swings coming, eyes flickering between the skeleton’s flickering positions. Sans isn’t looking at them like he’s mad, and that makes _them_ mad because how _dare_ he--

“Woah, you-” flicker. “seem a little intense-” flicker. slash. “having some-” flicker. “t- _issues?”_

Slash.

**Miss.Miss.Miss.**

Their eyes sting against the air and they swing, once more, _once more--_

“Heh. Guess that one _fell_ a bit flat.”

When a blaster intercepts between them between Sans, they make no move to evade the sudden onslaught of raw, unfiltered magic. It singes their skin and soul and smells of electric ice and mist, and they pull themselves forward through it, desperate for a taste of blue, for reprieve.

Their soul shatters.

 

* * *

 

**CONTINUE - RESTART**

Chara remains in the inky blackness much longer this time.

Sans wasn’t the one who ended up being hung out by a memory. It was them.

Something within them throbs.

_Ignore it._

They refuse to feel it.


	2. not every reaction comes from the same action (who cries from joy?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alt. title: chara is still an asshole (it's what they remember the most)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the new tags. ✿  
> So...Does Chara's writing seem a bit inconsistent?  
> good.
> 
> Smells like plot. 
> 
> Also, oh my god you all are awesome??? Like I don't think you understand how happy I am that people are reading this and enjoying it???? Seriously though -- I really, really appreciate it, 100% ;; you are all wonderful!✿

When they finally ease themselves back into the world, they swear the light shining into their eyes was starting to give them a headache. Maybe they’d spent too long sitting in the void? Things like light and physicality weren’t a thing there. Thoughts, kind of, but it was easy to lose yourself within it.

Anyone who didn’t have Determination was certainly doomed to sink into it and lose their sense of self.

“Y’know,usually you’re faster with the reloads when you’re the one dying, not the other way around. Seem to be a bit of a fan of changing things up this go-around.”

They shrug, smiling openly at the skeleton as they flick their wrists up by their shoulders. “Things change. Haven’t you heard that saying?”

Chara keeps their distance this time around, though is still faintly able to see that Sans has resumed his faux-breathing. Resets were funny -- even though Chara’s able to clearly remember everything that happened, there’s a sort of...freshness that comes from it. Like turning to a clean page in a notebook. They briefly wonder if it’s the same for Sans and that’s how he can face them fresh time and time again, but they don’t have much time to mull over it.

“So, uh...buddy. Frisk ever been this radio silent before?”

Sans is still watching them with the same, carefully guarded look he always does when they first enter this room. _Wait..._ has _Frisk ever been this quiet?_ They don’t really know for sure, but they don’t think so, and that seems like a good answer to give anyways. They shake their head while letting out a single breath of laughter. “Nope. Never. It’s great.”

They can feel. They can _feel_. With that silence had come feelings that they were slow to realize, and they didn’t know how to feel about _feeling_. By this point in Chara’s not-quite-life, they had thoroughly forgotten how to use the soul(s) they’d been given.

“There’s usually a set pattern to it,” they say, musing out loud as their smile drops to a pensive half-frown, drawing their own attention away from their previous train of thought. “Usually, it’s a genocide run that ends with them trading their soul to me, but that doesn’t mean much if the world’s already been blown to shit. So after, there’s usually a reset.” They shoot a gaze back over to Sans, but they aren’t really looking _at him_. More so just, the variable that was his existence. “Then they try and be good and get the perfect ending again, and I’m free to take what’s been given once they reach the surface.”

If it weren’t for the fact that Chara has been in this hallway with the other monster so many times, they wouldn’t have been able to notice the sharp intake of air from him. But they had, and they did, so they turn to look at him and again and smirk. “You can imagine how much good that does. I usually don’t come back to this scenario. But, no. There’s usually not silent, despite the number of times I’ve done this. They’ve gone _quiet_ , but I can usually _feel_ something there.”

And there’s that stupid word again, swimming around them and threatening to choke them with its tendrils.

“Why?”

They’d just rattled off a handful of information, and he’s going to ask _why_? Chara’s about ready to snap at him and ask what the hell he’s referring to, but he continued on anyway. If it was the exasperated look they gave or him just grasping to find a bit of common sense that caused it, they’ll never know. But they’ll roll with it. “Why did you come back here, then.”

They are radically unwilling to think too hard into that would-be answer. “Well, why not?”

He looks about as fed up with their answer as they were with his initial ‘ _why_.’ In their mind, it’s a clear win. They smile.

Sans doesn’t look like he’s itching to attack them, not yet, so they take a moment to squat down on the ground--their head hurt. Sans doesn’t question it and doesn’t make any sudden movements with his hands, so Chara hopes that they’re good for now. Not that it would really matter. They’ve beaten this fight recently, know the patterns, know how to dodge what. They aren’t worried.

About that, at least.

The thing that they are worried about is the reason they are here, why they came back, why they’re still sitting here so close to the ground when they’d wanted nothing more than to have another taste of the feeling if blade against exposed bone. If Frisk were here, they’d be saying that they were just lonely -- that they were coming back here because he can _remember_.

Sans remembers _them_ \-- _Chara_. Not Frisk. Not another human. _Them_. It was validation that no one else could give.

Sure, there was Flowey, but he was...too detached for it to mean anything. Lacking a soul leaves you lacking a lot of things -- Chara can remember what it was like, floating about as a half-formed fragment of Determination, before Frisk had stumbled down with their overly-similar soul that matched perfectly with their own fucked-up piece.

They’re not mad, though. They’re not mad that their brother is a flower that can’t feel right, even though Chara had basically been reincarnated right at his feet. (vines? who knows.) They can’t be, because they were in the same boat before they’d nestled themselves up in this human’s soul, snaking their way in there and waiting and waiting and _waiting_ to finally get acclimated and steal control.

“So. **Chara**.” They whip their head up so fast they _swear_ they’re going to have whiplash, and steel their gaze against the animated husk of bones ahead of them. “The first fallen human.”

Slowly, they start to ease themselves up off and away from the floor, never once letting their eyes wander. Sans looks as aloof as ever, but it’s that calm exterior that worries them the most -- Calm means calculated. Calm means controlled.

“Welp. Guess I hit the nail on the head with that one. Not that it was too terribly hard to get, given the pieces you decided to toss out on the table.”

Sans seems utterly nonplussed, hands in his sweatshirt pocket and his smile relaxed, and they really have to fight the urge to be impulsive and chuck their knife at him. Rather than abandoning their only weapon, they smile right back; it was just information, after all. And Sans was right. They had given a lot of key details on their true identity that last run around.

They just, honestly hadn’t expected to be _remembered_.

“Yeah, makes a lot’a sense. You never did answer my full question last time; you gave me the first and second, but not the third.” Chara watches as Sans slips both his hands out of his pockets, fingers flexing as he examines them like he’s looking for something. “When you let your **brother** absorb **your** soul in grief, carry your body to the surface because of your **selfish** , self-imposed dying wish, and **die** because of it.”

Chara feels something cold and heavy settle around their soul, but there’s no smell of ice in the air and Sans is just standing there, stationary, with his head downcast and his eyes completely devoid of any flashes of light. Their eyes narrow. This wasn’t right.

“No snarky comeback? Funny. Or maybe you really **don’t** care about all of this. After all, you are the human of the royal family that intentionally nixed themselves, and then got their **real** kid killed.” He only lifts his head up a little bit, but even without the tell-tale glowing slits in his sockets, Chara knows they’re staring straight at them. They don’t move. “So what could I ever know about someone who treats the world like it’s their own manipulandum.”

They reach for their knife, gripping it silently and holding in a breath that they didn’t remember halting. They weren’t planning on attacking even though the action was a clear threat, but what startles them is that _Sans_ didn’t look startled. Before, even the slightest inclination leaning towards attacking had him tensing up -- but now?

That calmness sets a flame on their iced over soul, melting and dripping like wax.

“Was waking up down here really so bad?” Sans’ shoulders raise, his hands reaching up just over his side in a sort of lazy shrug. “So bad that even after death you persist as a leech; a  **soul sucker**  just to destroy all of us as if your **brother** wasn’t enough -- your parents **relationship** wasn’t enough.”

Their head hurt.

“Maybe you’re too ungrateful with what you had.” His eyes echoed the void within and it was staring back. “Maybe you shouldn’t have woken up here. Kids would have still fallen, but they wouldn’t have been hunted. They’d have been given the same chances that you had thrown away.”

There’s laughter bubbling in their chest, hot and sharp and manic and they can remember their foot skidding against dust and golden lights and the smell of blue in the air. Chara’s memories are tethered so tightly to this soul that they could almost really believe it was their own, but there were inconsistencies there that they knew they would have never allowed.

Mercy between the Fight. Patience between the Brash. Honesty between the Lies. Understanding between Disbelief. Sympathy between Retribution.

Acceptance between Determination.

_Maybe...the truth is...Chara wasn’t the greatest person. While, Frisk...You’re the type of friend I wish I always had._

“Are you...”

Chara had never wanted to scream so badly in their life.

Not even with poison running through them, clouding their mind and body and it _hurt, azzy, azzy, make it stop, azzy,_ blood splattering against bedsheets and paws pulling at strands of sticky hair matted in sweat and they couldn’t make their body work the way they desperately wanted -- _needed_. Even when the world was ablaze and they were blitzed to oblivion and back, wanting to promise that it would be okay, _everything would be okay, trust me, please,_  they’d had something they wanted staring back at them so closely they could taste it.

Even if that taste was blood and flowers and water to try to wash it all away it was worth it, they could keep their silence, they could keep from making it worse, because they knew they _had to be in the right._  They’d promised. They had promised. Chara hated humans and their view of the sky had been splattered in toxic waste from leaking memories but their family deserved to see it, deserved to make it their own, deserved a _chance_ and if Chara could be the one to _give it to them_ \--

They don’t scream.

They smile and they laugh and try and push every feeling as far back as they could, because they could _move_ and _think_ and they _wouldn’t_ be taken over.

What does Sans know. What _could_ he know. No one remembers them, or they may as well not since the one that shared their _life_ with them was a stupid piece of fauna without a beating soul, and the other had Chara’s history so messed up and tinged with bias that it might as well not even be their own. They still want to yell and they feel like they might as well have let themselves get lost in the void where everything is mangled and garbled and pieced together in ways that don’t quite match.

Chara feels like that might already even be the case.

“This place is hell! I never asked to remain here -- even the _void_ is better than this!”

Sans tenses and Chara can’t help but wonder why, and suddenly he’d asking them how they would know anything about that and they laugh again because Sans is so damn clueless, despite pretending like he knew all the answers. Ignorance is the worst kind of stupidity and they think they see why their dumb flower sibling calls everyone down here an idiot.

They really do.

Sans was disgustingly self-entitled.

Chara still feels like they’ve been stabbed, despite being the one with the knife. “More than you. The void swallows people who don’t have enough Determination. Frisk is as good as gone. No amount of time bullshit in the world can save someone who has been swallowed up by it.”

He looks hurt, like they’ve killed another part of him that you never even knew was alive, and he attacks.

" **My last hope, can’t have been for nothing.** "

Chara can almost swear they can see him melting in his not-skin, and they laugh all the way through a cage of bones and pain and ice blue in their lungs and blood and -

 

**G A M E  O V E R**

 

* * *

 

They knew this was wrong. This wasn’t _them_.

Somewhere down the line they had lost who they were, and they can only assume that their mind had been jumbled by time. Resets. Reloads. Idling in a void that had an appetite of determination that nothing could ever sate. But it was okay, because they would get it _back_.

Smile. Smile. Smile.

Chara can feel that something is fundamentally wrong with them, like something’s been taken without their knowing. Their pause out of time hadn’t refreshed them. Something was weighing heavy in their soul and they wonder when it was they had started to change in the first place, and why.

They wonder how many times it might try and happen again.

_I refuse._

“I don’t understand.”

Sans seems startled by them, probably having grown used to him starting their spiel of dialogue between one another. They almost care, but they force themselves to choke everything back. Chara can feel something biting into them even though they’re fresh and new and uninjured, the sensation remains lock-jawed on their existence. It’s heavy.

And again they’re left wondering when the game changed; when they had decided to start tempting fate. _(exCept fAte DOEsn’t eXIst.)_

“You can’t know how this feels,” they mimic, wide-eyed and staring and their knife in hand, and Sans looks less than amused at their quote. They don’t mind. His darkened expression is amusing. They enjoy the tug it leaves on their heart because it’s real and honest, an almost-emotion that they can feel vicariously through others though never themselves.

“Oh? Tell me, then. School me on this **feeling** , as if you ever could.” There’s a pause and he’s watching them, wisps of light jerking from one point of their body to another as if he’s searching for something, like an answer he expects to be written on them with red ink. Chara offers him nothing in return so he continues, “You murdered everyone down here. My **brother**. Or have you somehow forgotten?”

They have not -- Chara remembers all of that with vivid clarity and they never plan to forget -- never _want_ to forget. They won’t.

“It’s different,” they choke out, squeezing their throat shut and letting their grin falter, locking their lips together in a thin line like they’re trying to stop the world from quivering out of their mouth. “You didn’t - you didn’t feel it and hear it.”

Sans’ grin was dipped again, not-skin tight around his eye sockets and not-eyebrows knitted in confusion, maybe apprehension, and sprinkled in disbelief. Chara twitches their mouth upwards, just enough, like a grin was trying to form but was falling very, very short. “Even if you were watching what happened to...yours, it isn’t the same as experiencing it f..irst hand.”

“Hurt. Fear. Pain, more pain, _so much pain_ \-- worry -- wanting to take control to save us, keep us safe safe, just take _control -- give me control -- don’t make me a passenger please just give me control-”_

They laugh again, wet and broken and sounding like a waterfall was pouring from their throat and it was too violent to ever try to get it to stop. Chara looks on as Sans shifts his right foot back, never lifting it, but simply sliding it away with both his hands exposed and out of his jacket.

He reeks of alarm and panic, and Chara can almost swear they can physically feel and hear the warning bells signaling in his head. “You can’t know how this _feels_ ,” they say again, and they raise their voice up too fast at the end to cause their voice to crack. Sans looks like he’s debating whether to back farther away, or move closer.

The hand that seems to shift towards them is evidence enough. Chara’s seen his movements so many times to know that, something as hesitant as that, wasn’t going to have enough power to bring on an attack.

He was too _unsure_.

Chara lets their eyes focus in solely on his recently moved limb, making well and sure that he knew they’d caught it. After a beat of silence they force out a single note of laughter out on a breath of air and let it float through the room on wings of desperation and heartache.

The trembling they let trail through them was like the wind, upholding them while seemingly trying to tear them apart and they can feel warmth pooling in the corners of their eyes. “-he’s gone. He’s _gone_ , my brother is gone -- all the resets in the world wouldn’t bring azzy back, not even for a moment --”

Hiccup. Breathe; quick and shallow, stuttering on the inhale.

Sans looks increasingly uncomfortable, beads of swear pooling on his head as he listens in silence, and Chara wonders for a moment if he’s seeing Frisk -- a small, scared child -- or if he was still associating Chara with the image he knew them for.

It’s an interesting enough thought, and Chara really wonders if they can alter a perception.

“H-Hey, kid...”

They force a small hum past their lips, to show that they’ve heard him, but don’t actually reply. Chara’s not really sure what he’ll take that as, but it seems like he’s decided it was a green light to step forward --

\--and they quickly shuffle their own self backwards with a cry, brandished knife moving so that it was being clutched all-too-tightly against their chest.

Predictably, Sans stills. They wonder if he was still doing that fake breathing thing, but their eyes are pooled with tears so their vision is swimming, though they’d had to squeeze them near-shut.Their cheeks hurt.

“I can’t do this anymore...I can’t do this...I never asked to be brought back _again!"_

This time they pitch forward, just a bit, letting their shoulders heave and let their head stare parallel at the floor and let out an actual sob.

They can’t see Sans from where they are, but they’d smell an attack before it ever came. There’s no ice-mist in the air, so they think they’re still good. “I-I just...” The way Chara’s stuck holding the knife is painfully impractical. Their hands are wrapped so tightly against the hilt, and it’s side is pressed firmly up against their chest, pointed edge upward. They can feel the coolness of it even through the fabric of their sweater, and the tip was nearly digging into their neck.

Their weapon of choice usually made them feel safe, but they were stuck in such a dumb position that it almost tickled them embarrassed.

They slowly ease their head up in a slow, tentative motion, because they needed Sans in their immediate line of vision. He still hadn’t moved a muscle -- stupid dumb puns notwithstanding -- and Chara’s quite satisfied with that.

“I-I don’t...” They sniff, voice small and wavering and breaking at the end as they swallow and play as though they’re trying to get their barrings. “I don’t want to be stuck like this anymore...I don’t want to be brought back, if I’m not going to be _me!"_

Chara throws their voice at the last word, wide-eyed and shaking with tears streaming down their face and staring at a skeleton like he’s got the answers to the multiverse.

He doesn’t, of course, and Chara’s just looking to see the way his fingers are locked and his face is too tight, almost like he’s in pain and not sure how to stop it. It makes them want to laugh again, but they don’t, because that wouldn’t be helpful here.

Instead, they move their knife away from themselves with unsteady hands, and steal one more look at Sans.

“I just w-want it to stop,”

-and they’re plunging the knife into their neck so fast that there’s no time to react. Not for Chara to wimp out and decide they couldn’t follow through, or for Sans to teleport over to them in time for it to matter.

It didn’t stop Sans from trying, but Chara’s yanking the knife out and abandoning it on the floor just as their body drops to be splayed out. They’ve poisoned themselves and known what it feels like to have their whole body feel like it’s being ripped to shreds, so they thought they’d be okay with this.

But the searing hot pain that bubbles in their neck and clogs their airways is different, too hot, too steady for them to ever have been prepared. They can taste mist-blue through the metal and vaguely make out white and blue through the old and fresh tears, and they’d honest to god laugh if they could.

They try anyway.

It ends with their blood on Sans’ clothes and an expression Chara didn’t think they’d ever be able to taste from them on their own terms.

The darkness that hits them first isn’t the same as the void -- they happily accept their own unconscious oblivion, and wait for them to wake to the right pitch of darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sans is going to get some genuine time. Keeping him an observer and commentator, rather than an actual person, was the point.  
> (hmmMmmMM)  
>  ~~thought probably a weird and/or idiotic one aahh~~
> 
> Also, hoooly walnuts we're 'gonna get some actual _interactions_ goin' on next time. Like, you know. With movement. And actual conversations. Stepping away from this room and actually interacting with one another in a way that doesn't consist of wearily eyeing each other from across the room like awkward creepers. That's...actually a thing I know how to do. I promise. Even though you might not believe me because WOW SO MUCH STANDING--


	3. the ghost i hear isn't me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it goops along under the SAVE file's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> (you are all amazing omg)

Chara turns on their heel and exits the judgment hall the moment they reform. Yellow pulls itself up from the ground and they stop to talk to a stupid flower that looks so confused, as if it could actually feel that way in the first place.

“...What are you playing at, Chara?”

They laugh and swing their knife down, again and again and again until it’s nothing but poison and paste and --

\-- and dust, certainly and obviously dust, and they’re main thought is that they’re glad they don’t have to eat it. The gag in their throat and the lurching feeling in their stomach is nothing but stagnating memories trying to trigger bodily reflexes that Chara’s new form doesn’t know, can’t have muscle-memory reactions of, so they breathe deeply and wait for it to pass.

In through the nose,

out through the mouth.

This scene is nothing more and nothing less than funny, because had things gone differently, Chara’s two personal Memory Heads could have been friends. Mom loved puns and Asriel loved to pretend he hated them, but would always laugh and ruin the illusion. Chara would be there, too, probably smiling like some emotional idiot and laughing and the thought is so disgustingly domestic that it has them wanting to puke all over again. The mess at their feet grounds them to their reality and they remember that there’s no room for dreams.

They eject themselves out again because they’re tired, and they don’t want to have to meet Sans when they’re tired. It wouldn’t end well for either of them.

Surrounded by the ink-filled murkiness, Chara’s left with only themselves as they stare at their two options. The same two options that appear again and again, unrelenting, unchanging. Sempiternal. Spiraled together and unable to split.

They blink, and for a moment, they swear they could have seen something flash across their SAVE. Just for a moment it was like they couldn’t make out what was there, but by time it had registered in their head, everything was normal.

It wasn't the first time their eyes played tricks on them.

 

* * *

 

When the light enters their eyes again and Chara starts their trek down the hallway, they know they’re not the only one who’s feeling a little bit differently this reload. Sans is still standing in the middle of the hall, looming, watching them with a concentrated interest that Chara’s not sure how to return, but they are pleased. But only because they know he’s upset because of them -- something they had intentionally thrown in motion, rather than ridden along for.

Control is good. Chara’s glad they’re getting it back. _(a **R** e **YO** u ?)_

When Chara reaches their usual point, Sans doesn’t say anything. It’s an odd sort of quiet that leaves them curious, wondering what could be going through his head. Chara’s actually...not too sure of how much the skeleton is able to remember about the various permutations. It wasn’t like they’d ever stopped to ask, or anything.

Though more than anything, the silence between them wasn’t very comfortable, and Chara decides to shatter it since it’s the only silence that they really have control over anymore. “You know, the two of us aren’t really all that different.” Or at the very least, they weren’t _quite_ as different as night and day.

They’re not lying, technically. On some invisible inside layer that doesn’t really matter, the two of them really _could_ be called similar -- even if it was too superficial to matter much. Luckily Chara knew how to play things up.

Sans doesn’t look any sort of shade of bemused at their comment, so they shrug, kicking their shoe against the floor. There wasn’t any dust here this time. “I keep finding myself here, again, over and over. Alive. And like some desperate idiot, I cling to it every time like it’s the last -- and maybe I’m hoping that one of these times, it will be? I dunno.”

Chara turns the head to toss their gaze behind them, through the door they’d woken up next to before chewing on part of their lip. There’s the sound of something dragging that they think might be Sans moving, but they aren’t sure, since they aren’t turning back around to check.

“Looks like you have a bit too good of a grip on those resets to be sayin’ something like that, kid. I’ve seen how you work.” They turn their head back around to cast a look at Sans, who just looks tired. There’s no anger, just... “And trust me, we aren’t that similar. Might as well label us _fire and ice.”_

Chara hums a small note of acknowledgment. “Are you sure? Think about it -- we both are aware of this time nonsense and use it to our advantage even if we can’t control it completely-” They see the look on Sans’ face like he’s going to interject, but they stop him. “-your ‘shortcuts’ make use of it. I can do the resets.”

They’re actually not totally sure how those shortcuts work, but it looks like they weren’t too far off if Sans decides not to speak. The moment of silence between them is enough for them to take as a positive sign, so they go on. “We know we’re in a loop, but still keep clinging to life, anyways.”

At that, Sans does speak up. “See, that’s not really a connection right there.” He shifts a hand out of his pocket, and in the process closes his hand so that one, thin boney digit could be pointed in Chara’s direction. “Those reloads and resets, those are all you. Even admitted it yourself a moment ago. We all wouldn’t have been stuck down here doin’ this same dance if you hadn’t come along and kept things from progressing. You’re the one halting things.”

They sigh. It wasn’t like he was wrong -- completely. It was starting to feel like Sans’ whole MO by this point -- grasping at half-truths like they were the only thing out there. “I already told you. I’ll cling to whatever life I can have. But I never chose to keep existing.”

Chara takes a step forward, then another, until they’re starting their decent to further close the gap between them and Sans. He looks uncomfortable, but not alarmed, seeing as your weapon is nowhere to be seen. “Yet your reloads--”

“--are because I want to _live_ , not just _exist_.” They stop a ways away from him, close enough that his breathing is obvious and they can smell something like burnt cinnamon and lavender from him. It was a weird mix. “If I don’t Reload, I’ll still _be here_ \-- just, stuck in the void. Aimlessly. Even the first time I killed you in this stupid hallway, and I moved on and destroyed everything, I was stuck there. Existing. _Waiting_. Waiting for something to happen, for my soul to crack and not reform.”

Sans looks like he was bleached a few times too many, staring at Chara like they were gonna lose it right then and there. _Right. He didn’t exactly know about that part, did he?_ It was the only thing that they could think would cause that sort of look. They shrug it off. “But it never happened. Frisk had still been there with me, and I didn’t want to slowly go crazy in that place, so I offered a trade of their soul for this world and they accepted. And the world reset, with me along for the ride once again.”

He still looks ill, but there’s a tempered hardness to him as he speaks. “You’re still choosing to reload and reset everything, kid.”

Both of Sans’ hands are back in his pocket, and Chara shoots their gaze off to the side before having it drift right back to him, almost like a magnet. _“_ How _**D** o y **O** u **KN** ow wh **A** t’s co **NSE** nsu **AL** , an **D** wh **AT** ’s in **F** lu **EN** c **E?** ”_

“Wh...”

They’re both stunned to silence once the words are out, and Sans is looking at them like they’ve grown a third head and Chara almost wants to ask if they really had. Knee-jerk reaction kicks in and they think about asking if he’s seen a ghost, but it seems a little ill fitting, all things considered. Chara doesn’t think they could anyway, even if they wanted to. Their throat feels like it was burned with toxic goo.

Can a ‘ghost’ that takes over a body, be taken over themselves?

They’re not comfortable with that train of thought of having anyone else’s voice in their head, and briefly wonder if that’s how Frisk felt when it was Chara’s words tumbling out of their mouth. But at least theirs didn’t sound like they couldn’t hold themselves together.

Chara really, really feels uncomfortable, and Sans looks like he’s echoing their expression, so this can’t be irrational.

They clear their throat. “I don’t want to stay here. Can we leave?”

They feel wrong in that room, like they’re being watched through a one-way mirror and don’t know who could be on the other side. Chara’s not a self-conscious person but they’re also not used to their mouth saying things they never intended, in a tone that they couldn’t imitate even if they tried.

“I want to go to waterfall,” they continue, quickly. “It’s not like I can cause any more damage than I already have here and I guess you could try to kill me again if you really didn’t want me leaving after I’ve already confronted you but, hah, you know I’d just end up back here so it’s you’re--”

“Kid, slow down.” They hadn’t realized they were going so fast. Chara greedily sucks in a breath of air, only to let it out with an almost nervous bout of laughter. “It’s, uh...C’mon. It’s a long walk. I can get us there faster.”

At any other point, they would have said no on principle, if for no other reason. But at any other time they wouldn’t have just spit out glitches from the matrix, so they nod, and Sans holds out his hand.

However, accepting his offer doesn’t mean they’re magically comfortable being touched by him. Their apprehension must have come to the surface a bit more blatantly than they’d anticipated, because Sans sighs and tilts his head back. “You know I’m not gonna hurt you. Or maybe you don’t. I don’t blame you for thinkin’ I would and that this was a cheap trick, but I really do need to hold onto you if you want to get there in one piece.”

They hadn’t even thought of that as an option. They’re rather frustrated at themselves for not considering this as being another quick-kill tactic. Chara can feel their eyebrows being knitted together and their jaw clenching and can almost _swear_ Sans looks like a bit smug at the display.

They aren’t pleased.

But they do throw a smile over their features and grab hold of his forearm through his jacket.

Sans’ gaze drops to their arm, and shrugs a bit as he rotates his hand palm-up so that he can grab hold of them in the same way. They don’t jump at the contact, but it does leave them a bit uneasy when they feel the bones of his fingers gripping into them.

“Hang on, and you might want to close your eyes.”

Chara shoots him a look, and Sans looks straight back, waiting for them to follow up with his recommendation. It doesn’t happen.

The words “you’re so freakin’ stubborn” barely filter in through the air before their equilibrium is overthrown, and the overwhelming scent of burnt ice and mist and blue coils around them, and they think they feel themselves tipping and then black, a familiar ink black that’s thick and dripping and what if they let go and they’re back here again, _this doesn’t feel safe--_

There’s a shift in scenery where the colors seem to bleed together through their gaze, and when the world filtered back into something they can make out, the first thing Chara notices is that they have a death grip on Sans’ arm -- and not just with the one arm they’d started with, but _both_. Amusingly-but-not-amusingly-enough, a quick glance to Sans’ face tells them that they find it funny and don’t seem at all angry, and Chara is definitely _not_ relieved at this, at all, they’re just annoyed.

But they are quick in jerking their body back away from Sans, stumbling as their body tries to remember which way is up, though it turned out to be the absolute worst thing they could have done.

The food that they’d had with that last bunch of monsters tastes about ten times worse coming back up than it did going down. Their throat is filled with a different kind of burn as they cough, bending themselves forward with their arms over their stomach as another heave travels through them and leaves them wanting to drop to the ground and never wake up. It felt like hell. It felt like when the world was putting them back together after a reset or reload, but much, _much_ too fast.

It didn’t help that they could hear Sans chuckling from off to the side where Chara had left them, and further rubbed salt in their artificial wound when he speaks and they can hear the smile in his voice.

The venom in Chara’s glare could be bottled and sold to serial killers.

“Hey, I warned you. Don’t give me that look -- jumping from place to place like that is an art form. It’s no wonder a clumsy and ungraceful kid like you wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

They turn their head and scowl, barely resisting the urge to act like a child and stick their tongue out. “What, and a lazy sack of trash like you is any more ele-” They swallow their words quickly and whip their head back around, gagging hard enough that their already shaking knees buckle and send them to the floor. Their arms are still wrapped around their middle, trembling, and Chara concentrates on forcing their breath out through their clenched teeth as steadily as they can manage.

“Well, more elegantly than you, apparently.” Sans’ voice sounds closer despite not having picked up on him moving, and the feeling of bones against their forehead leaves them shuddering into it. Chara can’t fight the urge in them that tells them that his cool hand is anything but comfortable against their clammy skin. “Seriously though, don’t sweat it. Time is a wonky thing and it even took me a while to get used to its effects.”

There’s a comment on the tip of their tongue about how they understand that, understand it _perfectly_ , but their body has other plans for them and instead they’re heaving more of their insides into the dirt, cursing their humanity to bits. The only other noise that came from them was a disgusting whine they couldn’t hold back, and the tears biting at their eyes had to be from exertion, and nothing else.

Chara can still feel Sans beside them, and they faintly register the sound of shifting clothes before they can see part of his knee on the ground beside them and feel a hand on their back. They want to shoot at him that they’re _fine, go away,_ but the only sound that’s emitted from them is another whimper through their chattering teeth. When had that even _started_?

“It’s okay, it’ll be over soon. You’ll be okay.” Sans’ voice sounds awfully warm for it to be directed at them, and Chara lurches again as their arms tighten. The hand on their back is tracing small patterns against their sweater, and they can’t help but remember it was the same thing that Asriel had done to them as well -- less steady hands, but warm and comforting all the same.

The memory burns at their retina, etched in and burning like all the things they didn’t want to think about now, _shouldn’t_ be thinking about now, because it wasn’t like they were dying anymore. They were so far passed it, that thinking about it shouldn’t be an issue.

But it is.

Chara eases themselves back and draws their wrist against their mouth, still shaking like a torrent, and can’t even be bothered to hide the sniff that seems to echo through the empty underground. “I’m sorry,” they say, but they’re not really apologizing to Sans alone. They turn for the first time to get a good look at Sans, who looks even more sorry than they feel. It didn’t make sense. Chara can’t find a reason for that to be directed at them.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. Already told ‘ya, this one isn’t your fault.”

They’re not sure what to say to that, so they settle for standing up, not really wanting to have to camp out here next to a puddle of their own sick. As familiar Chara is with this body now it seemed to not want to properly respond -- they nearly pitch over sideways and _would_ have if it weren’t for Sans jerking upright and catching them against his shoulder. Skeletons are about as comfy as one would imagine, but Chara can appreciate the help if they have to.

They guess.

They can’t help but feel awkward about being this close to a monster that they’re not trying to actively kill. Sans is at least smart enough to keep his mouth shit while helping them along the path, so Chara won’t really complain out loud. Besides, proximity wasn’t something he needed if he wanted to kill them -- it was that _Chara_ needed, and he probably knew this.

They _also_ couldn’t hold a knife straight if they wanted to, and he probably knew that little nugget, too.

“Over there -- where that echo flower is by the wall.”

Sans casts them a sideways glance, shifting the arm that was around their waist. “Why there?”

“I wanna hear what it has to say, that’s why.”

He snuffs out a breath of amusement, but they don’t miss the way he tenses up against them. Kind of hard to miss when they’re so close, really. “It’s probably just gonna be a scream of death and terror, you know.”

Well he wasn’t wrong. “Maybe. I’m still curious. And I also want to be let down.”

“Masochist.”

Chara doesn’t say anything to that, and luckily their destination-flower wasn’t too far away. Chara’s body was still shuddering against their wishes like a leaf, and they can’t help but steal another glance sideways at Sans to see his face. Honestly, Chara’s not sure what they expected. His grin was still in place even if it looked a little deflated, and his eyes were set straight in front of them. If they were searching for malice, they didn’t find any.

They _should_ have found some.

When they get close two the little blue bud, Chara’s careful in peeling themselves out of Sans’ grasp; he lets them go without a fuss and even though they stumble a little bit, they ultimately find their bearings. They kneel down anyways in front of the flower, and gently prod it.

“Tellin’ you, it’s going to be screams.”

Chara rolls their eyes, but it feels a little wasted with their back turned to the monster it was directed towards.

_“Don’t curse! Mom’s gonna kill you if you start!”_

They’re quiet for a moment, staring, before they ultimately end up ducking their head down and snickering. Of all the flowers Chara had ended up talking over... _This_ was the one that had survived?

“It wasn’t screaming,” they say, still not looking backwards. They can hear the sigh regardless.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

They feel rather proud, but they can’t help but think about what happens next. They both had bolted from that hallway after that...incident, and hadn’t mentioned anything about it the whole way. It wasn’t like they could avoid it forever -- well, _they_ probably could, but Sans, probably not. There were questions written all over his face about what that had been.

_“It wasn’t screaming.”_

Chara’s poke was rewarded with their own, overwritten message. It was almost an answer to the question.

“Chara, what the hell is _wrong_ with you?”

They can smell blue in the air and when they turn around they see Flowey, glowering and scowling with all the intensity an empty, sentient flower could muster. Which, to Chara’s own personal bemusement, was rather a low. He had poked himself out of the ground a few feet in front of Sans, with Chara not being too far behind. After what they had done to him last time, Chara knows he should feel a primal sense of fear -- in fact, you’re fairly sure he’s only being so bold because of Sans. The smell of ice mist is still there and they’re bothered that they don’t quite know for sure who it’s going to be turned against.

“I’m stopping to smell the flowers for once.” Flowey’s eyes narrow on them, and Chara pushes themselves back up to their feet. Pretty okay. Mostly okay. Sans is looking at them again and they’ve already plastered their face in a smile. They glance back at the yellow weed, and can _actually_  swear this time that the disbelief was practically palpable.

“This wasn’t the plan!” he says, swinging an uprooted vine into the air as some gesture.

“You were the one who said you didn’t like ‘the plan’ and decided to change your mind.”

“I was only kidding!”

“What, not gonna go cry to daddy with your vine between your leaves?” The vine in the air actually _wavers_ , and Chara nearly loses it in laughter right there.

“T-That was just a trick! I wasn’t --”

“You were _crying_.”

“Okay, wow, **pause**.”

Sans is surprisingly quick in interrupting the little catch-up you and Flowey were having, thought Chara never really expected him to let it go on for too long. He keeps his gaze on Flowey for a moment, before turning his head back to you. Compliantly, you raise both hands up to your shoulders, showing that you were weaponless. He seems oddly placated by this and turns his attention back to the flower.

“Now, what are you doing back around here, **buddy?** "

Chara doesn’t know what all went down before they latched onto Frisk, but they know that Sans and the weed have history that extends farther back then they were actively aware for. Flowey looks reluctant to humor Sans, and keeps looking between the two of them like he’s trying to think of the right thing to do. Figures that plans weren’t going to be his strong point, even now.

“I don’t have to tell you shit--”

And then the blue is directed at him, and Chara smiles. They can have it.

Flowey looks thoroughly annoyed as the blue keeps him tethered snugly to the ground, and with Sans’ back turned towards them, they stick their tongue out at the little weed. His eyes narrow in aggravation at Chara, but something seems to cross his mind, and he switches direction back at Sans.

“Are you an _idiot_? Chara’s just using you! Why are you playing like you’re _protecting_ them!?”

There’s a pause, and Chara’s genuinely curious to hear what Sans might have to say.

“They’ve got the answers I need,” he says, almost listless in tone as he presses his palm lower to the ground. In direct response, Flowey’s head dips.

“They can reset, you dumbass! Or has your brain turned to mush after so much time-jacking that you can’t even remember the basics!”

Chara holds their breath, eyes turning completely to Sans’ back. Of course, the stupid flower wasn’t _wrong_. In fact, they’ve said it themselves -- in this very timeline, too. But that doesn’t change the fact that they really don’t want to be sent back _there_ so soon -- not when nothing’s been resolved.

Luckily, Sans doesn’t immediately let Flowey go to attack them. Or attack Chara themselves. Rather, he keeps Flowey held in place, and chuckles. “Yeah, nice ability. Not somethin’ I’m gonna forget any time soon. Thing about it, though...everyone else down here? They don’t come back until the kid does. So, let’s say, I get rid of **you...** ”

The expression shift in Flowey is instantaneous -- in no time at all between breaths, Sans had summoned a cluster of three bones in a triangle, pointing them directly at his target. Chara’s not totally sure how Flowey would fight like this, but it’s basically pointless with the way his form was tinged in blue, and being kept rooted on the spot --

\--Except when Sans flicks his wrist forward and his attack shoots out, at the same time, another root had slithered its way around Chara’s waist and in no time at all, had them shot forward and thrown in front of them like a meat shield.

The bones impact into them through the chest and stomach, and it’s hitpoint after hitpoint that they can hear thudding away as the poison twists into their soul like acid, even after they were pulled out. Chara can hear Flowey laughing as they squeeze them tighter around the chest, and Sans looks horrified.

They wonder if they look that way as well, but Chara only has a beat to feel the impending terror of the void, before their soul -

**G a m E O v E R**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't even know anymore. this went in such a different direction than i originally set out with.   
> ~~i regret nothing~~


	4. [REDACTED]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did someone say meta????  
> Did someone say quasi science????

The truth is, not all of Chara’s memories felt the same. Falling down into the mountain and being found by Asriel, that sat strongly in their mind. But the why? Not so much. Most of their time with their family down in the underground is murky and only seems to fully form when they put it in specific words or thoughts. Everything that happened when they latched onto Frisk is in perfect clarity — but their own thoughts and feelings from during it, aren’t. They actions up to their first throwdown with Sans are plain as day — Chara remembers wiping the world to nothing. They remember making a deal to bring it back. They remember cutting down a flower with a sob in his throat, wearing the face of their brother as they begged them to stop.

But everything recent, since they themselves started directly speaking, feels...

_( **A** wf **ULL** y **d** if **FR** e **N** t do **E** s **it not**?)_

The sound that filters in through the empty space leaves Chara feeling tainted, but they force themselves still so not to react and fuel whatever or whoever was speaking. They’d love to tell themselves that they were just hearing things, but little, personal delusions would only make them vulnerable. _Lie to others, not yourself._

It wasn’t like they could run, either. All around them was nothing but unmuted darkness -- the only color that existed in this space was the faint, soft glow of their SAVE, looming over them like a quiet promise that things could always be fixed. Determination, determination, determination.

They refuse to be frightened by things that go bump in the dark.

Chara reached forward and slammed their hand over the Continue option,

but nothing happens.

“...”

They try again.

but nothing happens.

 _Again_.

nothing happens.

Chara tries once more, pushing against the propelling force that the SAVE naturally gives off and silently pleads for it to work, panic starting to truly thread its strings deep within the roots of their soul —

— and they phase right through like they were passing through a barrier.

They spin around on feet they can’t feel and a ground they somehow know is there, _gawking_ , the back end of their SAVE glowing brightly like it was taunting them. For all they knew at this point, maybe it was. The reversed image is still familiar in their eyes, but the more they stare they start to notice...something, floating off of the corners and fading into nothing. Bits and pieces of color that seemed to be almost dropping off of it in reverse, characters displaced and shifted too far over in ways that doesn’t look right.

“...Corrupted.”

Chara tries to tell themselves that they aren’t going to fall face-first into full blown panic, but they really aren’t even sure who they’re trying to fool by this point. If the pounding in their soul was anything to go by, they didn’t have too much farther to go.

**“Are you really surprised that something like this had the potential to happen?”**

They feel something snaking around their arms, thick and constricting and they go to scream with the air filling up their lungs —

— but it’s sliding around their eyes and around their neck, tendrils dripping and restricting and lacking in solidity but somehow keeping shape like an infinity fountain. There’s enough time for them to gasp in the air they don’t need, their hands clawing at their neck with a sort of desperation that they haven’t felt in a long time.

**“Child. Understand that you are not special. Were it wanted, you could be silenced permanently right here and now, and no amount of power or determination in the world could prevent it. You, are replaceable.”**

Chara instinctively knows this is the same voice as before, the same voice that had spoken through their own lungs, and they feel the coils around their neck constrict. **“You are not special. There are versions upon versions of you to call forth.**

**“You are a Chara who happens to have abandoned and banished their host’s consciousness to the void. You are distinctly aware of how your world works. At least, to a point; enough to allow this conversation to take place. But you are not the original.”**

“What are you — I’m the _only me!"_

It feels strange to speak into the deafening darkness, and stranger still to hear it speaking back. They _are_ themselves — there’s never been another Chara. There never could be.

**“So one would think. Even I had once thought that as well. But the void is endless; a hub world with only one port. And yet, everything is still connected...interwoven, and overlapping. Corruption exists, as you have seen, but sometimes it occurs as an integral part of the system, rather than a bug.”**

Chara can feel their soul thumping within them, a primal fear pulsing through them at being restricted. Whoever this person was, they had not relented in keeping them secured in place. Despite the blackness that felt like it could snuff out any sound that was present they had managed to sound even _clearer_ than they had when they’d spoken through them before -- it wasn’t something Chara understood, and they’re not even sure if they wanted to. Whatever the logic might be, it probably wouldn’t spell out anything good for them.

“If you’re...talking about the Save, it’s _mine._   _Only_ mine. I’m the only one who can control that — it’s attached to my own Determination!”

 _Stolen determination,_ they think, but it was still theirs none the less. No one else would be able to control it — even Frisk probably wouldn’t be able to yank back the reins by this point.

**“Is it? Can you tell me you’ve never felt a sort of quintessential wrongness of your actions; the actions of others? Like remembering the lyrics of a song, only to go back and realize that they had been wrong the whole time.”**

Chara’s thoughts from before come to mind, but they don’t seem to fit together. They know they’ve always been them — just because they can’t remember every detail of everything they’ve done, doesn’t mean that they could have belonged to someone else. They are themselves. _Chara_.

They can feel a sort of shift in gravity, but with the way their eyes are still being covered they’re not sure what’s happening — though they’re not even completely sure they’d be able to tell even _with_ their sight back. But not having it makes them even more nervous, so when they feel themselves tilt, Chara’s squirming within the inky grip to try and get some sort of leverage before _whatever_ it is has the chance to happen.

**“It seems my words are falling upon a closed mind. Perhaps you should...ask someone you know, to help you be a bit more receptive.**

**“But as disheartening as that is...know this: The void is not your space. Nor is it mine. There are hands that reach out and shape what we see...We are little more than puppets of a force we cannot even perceive.**

**“Know that you are not the one in control.”**

 

* * *

 

Chara stumbles back into the world with all the grace of a child being flung to the floor. They think, that just for a while, they’ve earned the right to stay right there on the floor where they’d landed. The artificial light from the windows was a comfort this time around even as it stings at their wide eyes and makes them want to squint; to turn away. They don’t, and simply curl their hands into fists against the tiled floor instead.

They were real, weren’t they? There couldn’t be another Chara running around. It sounded too insane and made-up for there to be another one of them existing at the same time. Even Frisk, who seemed to almost be a mirror image of them in appearance, was their own person. Or, had been. Even then, Chara had gotten rid of them in ways that they weren’t even completely sure of.

_‘Perhaps you should...ask someone you know’_

Just as soon as the thought had filtered in through their head, Chara’s already pushing themselves up on their feet with their muscles prepped to run, only to find that at some point their person of interest had gotten close enough to you that a move like that would have had them face planting into static bones. They’re quick in seizing their movements and hardening a look.

“You...”

But what were they supposed to _ask?_

“Kid, look, you gotta understand. What happened last time wasn’t intentional, and I should’a reacted faster—”

He was talking about _that?_  They stop listening, Sans’ words going straight through one ear and out the other. Chara doesn’t really have any place to be mad about a kill, and they’re a bit baffled that they’re even being _apologized_ to even if it was an accident this time around. Sure, they’re a bit miffed at _themselves_ for being stupid enough to fall for that dumb flower’s trick, but the two of them would have been back to killing each other eventually.

Really, it’s all the two of them knew how to do with one another.

“What? No, stop—I’m not mad at you for killing me again.” They pause. “That would be dumb. It’s nothing new.”

“I’m askin’ if you’re okay. You, uh...haven’t ever looked that way when you were dying before. Gotta tell you, it’s a little chilling.” He seems to let his eyes drift over them for a moment before turning away. “Considering that’s comin’ from the monster that’s killed you more times than he can remember, that’s gotta be worth something.”

They frown. “What are you talking about?” They don’t remember looking like anything specifically.

Sans shifts, shoulders shrugging within his jacket as he pulls it a little closer. “You just, looked a little more than a bit terrified when it happened. Usually you’re smirking or at the very least pulling your eyes closed but...you went out like a light, but your eyes were still glued skywards like somethin’ was swallowing you up.”

Chara’s hand instinctively reaches to their neck, even though they couldn’t feel even the ghost of anything there anymore. Sans’ confession has them remembering what their Save had looked like before they were forced back into it again, and has them wondering how it had happened without Chara’s explicit consent. They can’t help but wonder if that being in the void had intended on making them so paranoid, and that it was part of it’s end game — if it was, then it was working.

“You—You remember Saves, right?”

The looks Sans gives them really seems to solidify their previous thought, because he’s eying them like they’ve lost it. Which doesn’t really help, seeing as they’re starting to feel like they have and are even questioning if his look means ‘no shit why are you asking’ or ‘what the shit is a save.’

Chara hates themselves right now, and hates the sudden uncertainty that everything seems to have taken on even more.

“Just—just answer me. I’m going somewhere with this.”

Were they? They’re thanking the heavens or whatever might be out there that their voice at least held even.

“Yes...? Though, to be honest, these past couple’a reloads, you’ve been starting to seem like a completely different kid. Not that I really ever knew you well to begin with, but if we’re goin’ off of this type of thing I might as well toss that out there.”

Chara’s not exactly sure how Sans meant for that to be taken, but for them, it wasn’t exactly a good way.

They explain what happened in the void, about the other creature that had never shown up before, and what it had said. They explain the sound, the gripping ink that had slid around them, how it had said that they weren’t the _original_ — that corruption wasn’t a side effect. About hands and hub worlds and shaky recollections of things they didn’t understand, and finally about how it had asked them to ask _him_ for an explanation of it all.

Sans listens, carefully, remaining surprisingly neutral given what he was being told.

“The last I’d looked,” they finish with, “the save had looked...wrong. And that thing had somehow put me back here in time without my doing.”

He doesn’t react immediately, and Chara has to bite their tongue to keep from fidgeting. Several beats of silence pass between them before Sans finally sighs, heaving his shoulders forward as the lights in his eyes flicker out, and he bows his head.

“That...sure is a lot of information you got there. Though given the content...I’d be hard pressed to not believe it, even if it is coming from you.”

Chara feels like they should be a bit offended at that comment, but really, he wasn’t wrong. It figures that Sans would know they were nothing but a dirty liar, even if he’d never pointed it out before.

The pinpricks of light return and he lifts his head up, tossing his gaze backwards for a moment before shifting it in Chara’s direction. “Got someplace I feel like I should show ya, though it’s a bit far. Think you would be willing to follow instructions this time?”

They grown, shooting a glare, but end up stepping up beside them regardless and wrapping both their arms around his. They’re not thrilled about it, at all, especially seeing as their nose is practically right in the fluff of his hood.

But Sans’ shortcuts tasted like the void, and that was the last place that they wanted to be stuck — honestly, they didn’t even want to be anywhere near anything that reminded them of that, but it wasn’t like they were going to chicken out because of one little scare.

Big scare.

Their grip tightens and they shove their face into Sans’ sleeve, eyes pressed firmly closed. “Just go, and don’t say anything.”

Chara knows their voice is muffled by the bushy blue fabric, and even though Sans doesn’t say anything, they can feel the low vibrations of his laughter followed by the lack of gravity to support them.

 

* * *

 

“Alright, kid. Feel free to open your eyes and release your death grip on my arm at any time. If I had circulation, I think I’d have lost it by now.”

As much as they’d have loved to let go right then and there, past experience told them that it would be a rather bad idea. So instead, they keep themselves latched on to the fluff of blue fabric, squeezing it between their fingers before slowly peeling their eyes open. When the world doesn’t spin they take that as a go ahead to draw back and carefully untangle themselves from around Sans’ arm.

He’s silent as Chara looks around, scoping out the room before it finally clicked where they were. It was a sight that was familiar to them, albeit a little fuzzy.

“You’ve seen this place before. Or at least you should have, seeing as Frisk is the one I had given the key to.”

They had. Chara remembers being bored in here when Frisk had tentatively made their way through, curiosity fueling them as they had respectfully searched through everything they could. Chara thought it was all just meaningless junk — they didn’t have any reason to _be_ in there. But everything Frisk had looked through had filled them with an unbridled sense of interest in the smaller skeleton, even if Chara couldn’t have cared less.

Sans moves further into the room, positioning himself in front of the large desk that dipped into the far wall. There were papers that Chara faintly recognized, scattered about and written in a language they couldn’t understand, but Sans just looked listlessly at them. “Before—way before—this fulmination all started, I used to be a scientist. Second hand to the..previous royal scientist; the one before Alphys.”

Chara’s not really sure why he’s telling them this, but they can’t help but be colored impressed. They raise their head up and watch him, eyebrows arched in a skepticism that refused to leave them. _This guy?_ Chara can admit that he had spouted some questionable things sometimes, but they wouldn’t go so far as to say he was a _scientist_. It seemed too...proactive. And demanding. And that small jumble of bones didn’t look like they could house a brain that was willing to put up and preform like that.

“You mean you actually handled a _job_?”

Their meek attempt at humor wasn’t lost, and Sans offers them a weak smile in return. It kind of looked like he was nervous. “Yeah. Shocking, huh. Actually had a doctorates degree and everything. Heck, there honestly was a time that I actually gave two shits about everything—sorry. Language.”

They actually laugh at that, though the sound is quick and fleeting, gone almost as soon as it had came. They know Sans had never cursed in front of Frisk, and therefore them as well, but they’re still stunned by the fact that he made a point in apologizing. They chalk it up to it being habit.

“Anyways...You heard my spiel a thousand times about timelines. How they stop and start. Thing is, they weren’t quite...linear.” Chara squints at him, moving backwards so that they can grab hold of a thin, black stool and plop themselves on it. Sans hasn’t moved much, but he looks troubled, or...pensive, or something else they couldn’t place.

Almost like he was in his own world.

“So, it’s all science-y stuff, but I think I can break it down well enough...you ever heard of parallel universes?”

Sans turns so that his back is against the counter, moving his eyes to meet Chara’s as he rests his elbows against the surface as well. They just nod, mindlessly spinning back and forth in the chair.

“Good. Makes things easier. Among other things, that was what we were looking into. The doc and I. He was fascinated by the idea that there could be more than one version of ourselves running around and existing, and possibly living very, very different lives. They’d have the same soul, the same body...but very, very different lives.”

They can see Sans’ fingers tapping against the inside fabric of his jacket, the small indents periodically poking out and making themselves known. He turns his head down and casts a glance at what looks like the blueprints behind him, and they can’t help squinting at it as well.

Not that it did much good, and when Chara thinks about asking something, Sans is picking right back up where he’d left off.

“The idea was, ‘What if we could tap into those other universes, and extract the souls back here?’ We can’t bring someone back once their soul is gone. It was also around then that the second child had fallen down, causing anomalies that at the time, we couldn’t explain.”

They frown, speaking up this time as they raise their right hand up to their shoulder, almost like they were in school. It seemed oddly fitting, since it felt like they were getting lectured. “Wait. That seems a bit...morally shady? Especially for you. But even if you were somehow and mystically able to do that, the person you were bringing over wouldn’t...be the same as the one you lost? Right?”

Chara actually has no idea, but the thought of being so easily replaced leaves them feeling cold. They fight the urge to squirm in their seat, rubbing their arm as they shift their gaze to the side.

Sans’ laughter is what brings their attention back, and they catch him in time to see him rubbing the back of his skull. It sounds sad, and his expression was knit together in such a way that he must have known it, too. He makes a fist against the back of his head and they think, probably, that if he had hair he’d be clenching it.

“That’s what I said, kid. What is a soul? What is a monster? The soul might be the culmination of our being...” Sans looks them over, before sighing and seeming to start over. “...it’s important, the soul, especially to us. But the brain...that’s what holds the information.”

And they are now very, very confused.

“But, um.” Chara stares, probably a little more intensely than they should be, at Sans, who is looking back at them with a confused look. _Good_. They were confused as well and if _they_ had to be, then he could bask in the feeling for just a little longer.

“Do all monsters even _have_ brains?”

Once the question slips, they kind of want to laugh at how bad it sounds. Sans picks up on it instantly, and looks less than bemused. They weren’t trying to break the ‘mood,’ or anything — they just really weren’t able to get the reference. They’re stuck in a staredown with a skeleton. _Since when do skeletons have any sort of fleshy bits._

“You tryin’ to say somethin’, kid? ‘Cause this really isn’t the time—”

“No!” Chara at least has the decency to look a little embarrassed. “I mean...You’re all just, _really different._  You’re an animated skeleton. Frisk made friends with a freakin’ _ghost_ , and the bartender in your town was _literally_ a man of fire!”

They throw their hands up in exasperation, weaving their legs around the legs of the chair to make sure they wouldn’t fall. “I can kind of see how a talking goat or dog would work on the inside, but some of you are just pushing it!”

Sans holds his gaze with them for a few beats too long, non-eyebrows raised in surprise, and Chara slowly lowers their arms with a small huff of air. Before long, Sans is exhaling a breath as well and raising a thin, bony hand to his forehead and letting out what sounded like a small laugh.

“Holy sh--wow, kid. Okay. Do we...really need to have a biology lesson right now?”

Chara stands firm. Or, sits, rather. “Just, give me the condensed nutshell version. Very tiny and very squished.”

They’re answered with a sigh, and watch as Sans eases himself away from the table and pushes up the right sleeve of his jacket. “Alright, look. It works a bit differently...a lot differently, actually, than humans. There are some monsters that have physical brains, but...that isn’t, quite where the information is actually stored.”

Sans twists his exposed arm around in the air, and Chara watches on in a perverse interested. They remember what it felt like to cleave straight through him.

“See, I don’t have any nerves. But I’m still able to feel everything.” He shoots Chara a look, and they don’t even have to wonder what it was for. The timing makes them swallow uncomfortably, like he was able to read their thoughts, and it makes them a little nervous. Luckily he moves on quickly. “We’re made of magic; literally keeps us together.”

He moves his other hand to poke up against the thin chunk of bone on the inner part of his arm. “Thin lines of magic are threaded in there. Again: we’re made of magic. So It makes sense that parts of who we are would be linked to that.”

Their head hurts. If this was a condensed version, they aren’t sure they’d be able to handle a full-blown explanation.

“But...Wait. Wait. You’re soul is what’s linked to your magic, though. How can your magic threads be the brain, if they’re attached and allowed to function _because_ of your soul.”

Sans is looking at them with a look that makes Chara really, really want to carve it away with a knife. Slowly.

“You, uh. Have a heart, don’t you? Your brain only works because the heart is beating. Very similar concept.”

They don’t have a reply to that, so they stay quiet. For a moment, at least, before their mind catches up with everything they’ve just been told, and they frown.

“So...that’s how a monster can still exist without a soul. Well, as long as you pump ‘em up real good with dose after dose of determination.”

Chara’s mind instantly goes to their brother, but they aren’t really bitter about it. Not really. Asriel didn’t deserve what happened to him — they’re not even sure what exactly had happened in the first place — but he ended up still alive, in some form, just like them.

Maybe that explained how Chara was still here. If monsters stored their life’s information in their magic, and Chara had absorbed enough magic down there to keep them together, then maybe that’s why they didn’t die completely. They were human, so they had their own natural source of determination.

Who knew personality traits could be so powerful.

“DT extractions,” Sans supplies, rolling back down his sleeve as he sighs. “Weren’t really my field of study, directly. Alphys was in charge of that department. Worked both as an alternative solution should we come out empty, or as a means to forward the project entirely. But that’s...a little off topic.”

Sans dips his head again, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “When I said I didn’t work along...the doc, my colleague and superior, the one who was the head royal scientist before Alphys. Gaster.” He moves to the left of the desk and hovers his hand over one of the draws, but seems to think better of it and lets it drop. “He...There was a theory. There could be an infinite amount of universes with varying degrees of similarity to out own. Bit the ones that were close enough to ours...similar enough, they could...influence each other.

“Gaster had said, that in order for those states to become...tangible, they needed to have an ‘ultimate observer’. Someone would need to be present to validate these fluctuating states — those anomalies — so that they could become solid.”

Chara’s eyes narrow, leaning a bit forward even as Sans’ back is turned towards them. “Wait, you’re losing me again. What do you mean ‘solid’? States? Observing something that hasn’t happened?”

He pauses before turning around and pulling something out of his pocket — a single gold piece. Without looking down, the point of his thumb glows blue and when he brushes it against the coin, it leaves a dent. Chara’s a bit more confused as to how he was able to cut something with just his magic, but he tosses the thing in the air before they can ask, and watches as it flips somewhere off on the counter behind him.

They can’t do anything but look back and forth between Sans and the table, utterly confused.

“So. That coin. It either landed mark up or mark down, but neither of us knows which, right?”

They turn their head to the side, giving Sans a sideways glance like he’s lost it. “Riiiiight...?”

“And we won’t know unless someone looks.”

“...right?”

“It’s like that. The, uh. Observer thing. Basically it’s that, until something is explicitly looked upon by a conscious observer, anything is possible. The doc, wanted to be the one to do that, and lock everything in place.”

It’s Chara’s turn to press their fist to their forehead, wracking their brain for what they were looking for. “...Oh. So. It’s like the cat?”

Sans’ eyes widen just a bit, and he leans back. “You know about the cat?”

This time they snort out a laugh. “Everyone knows about the cat.” Chara’s actually not too sure how Sans wound up knowing about it, but then again, they aren’t exactly sure of how anything down here really works. And that was starting to become increasingly obvious. “So...is there a point to all of this, because —”

“The doc threw himself into the core.” Chara stills. Sans simply sighs, and points his pupils at the ground. “Wasn’t a single thing anyone could have done to stop him. The core was already a beast of a creation, so that probably...No one really remembered he existed after that. A handful of his associates mysteriously seemed to vanish as well. They just...seemed to be wiped from time. Like they were removed from the picture completely.”

“Wiped from time...”

Chara says the words slowly, rolling them in their mind as Sans turns back to you, silent. There were so many conclusions you could draw and jump to. Chara wasn’t smart, they couldn’t form theory after theory, but they could at least make assumptions. Time was something that they were infinitely familiar with, and that was something to go off of. Because when they removed themselves from time, where they ended up was...

“Looks like you’re coming to the same conclusion. Yeah. That voice from before...definitely screwed up, definitely twisted, but...Same guy. Figures he’d still have a thing for theatrics.”

They turn away, choosing to stare at anything else in the room as long as it wasn’t living.

“No one should be able to survive in the void,” they say, swallowing thickly. “Not without Determination. Losing your form is one thing, but your consciousness is the real thing that shouldn’t last.”

“How do you know?”

They pause. How do they know? It was just something that had been there, like they had inherited the knowledge when they had inherited the SAVE. “I’m not the scientist here,” they say, a bit too hard.

Sans seems to have patience in spades — which figures, since he’s had to deal with their crap this whole time — so they hear his jacket ruffle and assume he’s shrugging.

“Part of science is speculation, kid. it’s later that you start trying to apply and prove your theory.”

Chara snorts, crossing their arms. “Bet you’d understand it if you did a swan dive into the core.” They glance up to see Sans watching them, arms linked as well. On principle, Chara unlocks their own and settles for pressing their hands against their chair. “Maybe that’s what happened to Frisk. Not, jumping into the core. But, jumping into a different world by accident.”

Sans freezes, and they almost wonder if they should have said anything at all. He steps forward, closer to them, and they think they smell blue mist in the air. “What do you mean, **jumped worlds by accident.** You can’t accidentally enter a parallel world, kid. I don’t know if you were listening or decided to tune out but, that isn’t even a thing you can do **on purpose.** ”

Sans is towering over them, and Chara’s first response is to straighten themselves out and stare right back. The smell of blue in the air is definitely there, since now that Sans is closer, they can just barely see the thin outlines of magic swirling around the outer rims of his pupils.

“The SAVE was messed up when I was last there. Even before that, before Frisk stopped being a presence with me, I was already getting a stronger grip on their soul. So...I don’t know, maybe they weren’t able to hang on tight enough, and we ended up splitting when the world was reforming.” They pause for a beat. “It’s like when you teleport. It kind of feels the same way when I reset and reload. Maybe they got pulled somewhere else.”

Chara’s not sure how, but Sans seems to have gone a few shades lighter as he took a half step back. They don’t relax.

“...What do you mean?”

They shrug helplessly. If he was looking for answers, then he was barking up the wrong tree. “I don’t know how it works, just that determination lets me do it. That whole...being ripped from reality feeling before being placed back together. Why? Do _you_ know how it works?”

Sans takes a moment to steady himself, covering his face with one of his hands for a moment before letting it slide down. “Honestly? **Yes**. Magic might be...well, **magic** , to you humans, but for monsters it’s a hell of a lot more. We may have a natural knack for it, seeing as it keeps us alive, but it still needs to be learned. There is theory, and practice.”

He clenches his jaw, shifting his eyes to the side as the lights in his eyes are blown out. Off reflex, Chara can’t help but stiffen. “If I didn’t know what I was doing, I could’a ended up lost, in some screwed up location in between. That’s why I told you to hold on. Why I always told Frisk, to **hold on.** ”

Chara almost feels a bit guilty, watching Sans like that. It’s the kind of thing that they can’t help but be fascinated by because it was so different. They don’t say anything though, and opt to simply watch on as Sans seems to struggle with himself over some outcome that can’t be changed.

Finally, Sans speaks. “...Your save. You said before that it was jacked up — that means it can change. You can get them back.”

They sneer, eyebrows drawn together and seconds away from sticking their tongue out in disgust. “Are you kidding me? I’m not risking that, especially not for them.”

If looks could kill, Chara would have been dead where they sat. They’re honestly baffled about where this venom is coming from, because they didn’t remember him ever being that close to Frisk. “Then **I’ll** do it. I’m not abandoning Frisk in some...other universe, with people that might not be anything close to what they remember.”

They sigh, hopping off the chair and carefully sidestepping out from in front of Sans’ gaze. Naturally, his gaze lingers on them, but at least they’re standing so they feel a little more safe. Even if this room was cramped to bits. “It’s my Save. It’s built on my determination — you couldn’t access it even if you did manage to get there. Besides, I don’t know how to change it.”

“But **he** does.”

There’s a sudden need for them to run their hands over their arms, goosebumps forming under their sweater and they hate that they’re so easily affected by things like this. All things considered, this should be beneath them.

But it isn’t, and talking about that — that _creature_ makes their skin crawl something awful, and they huff. “I’m...not just going to strut up to that thing and ask politely. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

Chara can see how the blue in his eye seems to pulse, thumping with a heartbeat that he doesn’t have, and they’re almost afraid of getting a bone shoved right through them or burned like he did that coin. But he doesn’t, and instead forces his eyes shut, and holds his hand out.

Their eyes go from him, to his hand, and then back again.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Skeleton fleshy bits._ *cue lightsaber noise.* ~~i smell you, sinners.~~
> 
> *Observer Effect is a radical misconception that is none the less insanely interesting to think about. Because we’re human and we are _determined_ to believe that in some way, we’re still at the center of the universe.
> 
> Don’t mix science with magic. You get nonsensical nonsense and everything gets silly.  
> Hello and welcome to monster biology 101: today’s topic: the teacher doesn’t know shit about monster biology so they’re gonna make shit up.

**Author's Note:**

> (sweats) uhhh...  
>  ~~i'm not done with this hahahaha..haha..ha..hhhhh~~


End file.
